labels - National Gallery of Victoria

Outer Circle:
The Boyds and the Murrumbeena Artists
Exhibitions Labels
INTRODUCTION
The Boyd family is Australia’s best-known artistic
dynasty. From 1913 to the early 1960s, members of this
family lived at the property Open Country in
Murrumbeena, in Melbourne’s south-east. Over these
fifty years, a pottery, kiln, studios and outbuildings were
built near the small weatherboard house. The property
was hidden by an overgrown wilderness from the
suburban street, which abutted Murrumbeena Creek and
the remnants of the short-lived Outer Circle railway line.
Here Merric and Doris Boyd raised their five children –
Lucy, Arthur, Guy, David and Mary – who in turn married
and started their own artistic careers and families.
Friends, including artists, writers, academics and
musicians, were warmly welcomed into this loving and
encouraging environment, which became a sociable
meeting place. The vessels and figures produced by
Merric and Doris Boyd from the 1910s onwards, and the
domestic and decorated pottery made by their children,
their spouses and friends from the 1940s provided
incomes that enabled, in particular, Arthur and his
brother-in-law John Perceval to further their painting
careers. This exhibition is based upon the National
Gallery of Victoria’s collection with some additional
loans, notably from the Estate of Marvin Hurnall, whose
passion for Boyd ceramics was significant.
_____________________________________________
BOYD FAMILY – ROOM 1
The Boyd family had its Australian origins in early
colonial Melbourne. Merric’s father, Arthur Merric Boyd,
descended from the military Boyd and landowner Martin
families, while his mother Emma Minnie à Beckett
descended from the judiciary à Beckett and beerbrewing, ex-convict Mills families. The Mills’ fortune
enabled the family to live in comfort and leisure during
the nineteenth century, travelling in Europe and residing
in England. Both Emma Minnie and Arthur Merric
studied at the Melbourne National Gallery School, and
painted and exhibited throughout their lives. They had
five children: Gilbert, Merric, Penleigh, Martin and Helen,
although Gilbert tragically died young in a riding
accident.
Penleigh established himself as a successful landscape
painter and, like his parents, exhibited at the Royal
Academy in London. His career, however, was cut
tragically short when he died in a car accident at the age
of thirty-three. Penleigh’s son Robin was later
recognised as Melbourne’s most noted modernist
architect. Martin became a respected expatriate author,
who often drew upon his extended family for his
narratives, and Helen was a painter in her later years.
Despite dwindling finances in the twentieth century, the
Boyd siblings grew up in a supportive and creative
environment; Martin recalled that ‘sketching for us was
as normal an activity as breathing’.
_____________________________________________
Emma Minnie Boyd
Australia 1858–1936, England 1890–93
Interior with figures, The Grange
1875 Harkaway, Victoria
watercolour over pencil on paper on cardboard
The Joseph Brown Collection.
Presented through the NGV Foundation by
Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor,
2004
2004.271
Emma Minnie à Beckett showed artistic talent from a
young age. She was fortunate to study at the Melbourne
National Gallery School, under Eugene von Guérard,
and took private lessons with Louis Buvelot and,
probably, Madame Vieusseux. Her work was first
displayed at the 1874 Victorian Academy of Arts
exhibition and she exhibited in these and other
exhibitions throughout her life, showing great proficiency
particularly in watercolour.
From 1919 to 1922 Emma Minnie, Arthur Merric and
their daughter Helen lived in a house they built beside
Merric’s Open Country. Named Tralee, it still survives, at
12 Wahroongaa Crescent.
__________________________________________
Emma Minnie Boyd
Australia 1858–1936, England 1890–93
The window seat
1887 Melbourne
oil on canvas
Gift of June Stewart in memory of Dr Randall Stewart
through the
Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2009
2009.447
The window seat is one of a group of paintings by
Emma Minnie that depict friends and family members
engaged in leisurely pursuits in elegant drawing rooms.
This painting depicts the interior of Glenfern, her
husband’s family’s Gothic residence on Inkerman Street,
Balaclava, and it is likely that the figure is her sister-inlaw, Lucy. The courting couple in Interior with figures,
The Grange, were probably her own sister, Emily, and
her suitor-cousin, shown in the Boyd family house in
Harkaway, south-west of Melbourne.
_____________________________________________
Emma Minnie Boyd
Australia 1858–1936, England 1890–93
Corner of a drawing room
1887 Melbourne
oil on canvas
K. M. Christensen and A. E. Bond Bequest, 2006
2006.37
‘Mrs. A. M. Boyd exhibits [in the Victorian Academy of
Arts exhibition] two small pictures in oils, The window
seat and Corner of a drawing room, both of them
carefully drawn and well composed, full of painstaking
detail, nicely worked out, together with an effective
arrangement of direct and reflected light, which is
noticeable in the second of the two pictures more
especially.’
The Argus, 7 October 1887
_____________________________________________
Emma Minnie Boyd
Australia 1858–1936, England 1890–93
To the workhouse
1891 London
oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs Emma à Beckett, 1893
p.399.4-1
This was the first painting by a Boyd to enter the NGV’s
collection. It was donated in 1893 by Emma Minnie’s
mother, Emma à Beckett (née Mills), who was herself an
accomplished amateur artist, and a dedicated supporter
of her daughter’s art. This painting is of particular
significance because it is the work that Emma Minnie
exhibited at the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition in
London in 1891. This study of a destitute couple was
atypical in her art, but corresponds with an increasingly
strict religious belief and concern for those less fortunate
than herself, which she instilled in her children.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Merric Boyd
New Zealand 1862– Australia 1940, Australia from 1886,
England 1890–93
St Kilda Pier
1888 Melbourne
oil on canvas
Purchased, 1967
1729-5
Arthur Merric Boyd and Emma Minnie à Beckett met
while studying at the Melbourne National Gallery School:
fellow students included Frederick McCubbin, Tom
Roberts and Rupert Bunny. The couple married in 1886
and travelled in Europe in the 1890s, before the
Depression of that decade reduced family funds. Back in
Melbourne they devoted themselves to their art,
receiving validation of their talents through exhibitions,
sales and some teaching. This is the only painting by
Arthur Merric in the NGV collection and reflects his love
of the sea and of sailing, which he passed on to his
grandson Arthur.
Martin, the youngest son of Emma Minnie and Arthur
Merric Boyd, became a noted expatriate author, living in
England and then Italy. His first novel was published in
1925, and thereafter he published regularly. In a brief
return to Australia in 1948–51, Martin bought the family
property The Grange, Harkaway, and commissioned his
nephew Arthur to decorate it with religious frescoes.
Arthur encouraged Martin to explore the family’s history,
which led to the Langford Quartet series of novels
(1952–62). A Difficult Young Man is based upon Martin’s
sometimes troubled relationship with his elder brother
Merric, while Arthur appears in The Cardboard Crown.
_____________________________________________
Like his parents, Penleigh studied at the Melbourne
National Gallery School, under Bernard Hall and their
friend Frederick McCubbin, and started exhibiting before
his eighteenth birthday. At the school he also met the
much-admired Doris Gough, who later married his
brother Merric. Penleigh travelled to England, painting in
Chelsea and at the artists’ colony at St Ives, Cornwall.
One of his paintings was selected for the 1912 Royal
Academy exhibition, a triumph for such a young artist. In
Paris he met and soon married the young model and
artist Edith Anderson, whom he brought to Melbourne in
1913.
Penleigh Boyd
England 1890– Australia 1923, Australia from 1893,
France and England 1911–12, 1915–18
The Warburton Ranges
1923 Warrandyte, Victoria
oil on cardboard
Presented by Dr Michael Elliott through the
Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2013
2013.404
While serving during the First World War, Penleigh was
badly gassed at Ypres and sent home as an invalid in
1918. He retreated to his house in Warrandyte,
determined ‘to produce something enduring from the
peculiar conditions of the Australian landscape’. His
subsequent celebratory images, in oil and watercolour,
offered a reaffirmation of the beauty, purity and truth
found in nature, in contrast to the devastation he
experienced in the trenches. Regrettably, his flourishing
career was all too short: he was killed in a car accident
on the road to Sydney in 1923.
_____________________________________________
Robin Boyd
Australia 1919–71
Plans, Arthur Boyd studio
1938 Melbourne
blueprint
The Robin Boyd Foundation, Melbourne
In 1938 Arthur Merric Boyd gave his grandson Arthur a
gift, funding him to commission his cousin Robin, then a
nineteen-year-old architecture student, to design a
studio, which Arthur built himself in the garden of Open
Country. Like a spaceship landed in the suburbs, this
contemporary International-style building, with its wall of
sloping glass windows, served as studio and residence
for Arthur, and later for his wife Yvonne and their
children and others. In the 1960s Barbara Bilcock was
residing there when she met Albert Tucker, whom she
later married.
Robin Boyd
Australia 1919–71
The Australian Ugliness
published by F.W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1960
book: offset lithograph, 229 pages, cardboard and fabric
cover, stitched binding, paper jacket
The Robin Boyd Foundation, Melbourne
Robin Boyd was the second son of Penleigh, raised by
his mother Edith after his father’s untimely death. Robin
grew up surrounded by his parents’ art and supported by
the extended Boyd family: his wife Patricia was a niece
of Doris Boyd’s. As director of The Age Small Homes
Service, he promoted well-designed houses, selling
plans for £5. As well as a skilful architect, Robin was a
lecturer, social and architectural historian, radio and
television commentator. His controversial bestselling
book The Australian Ugliness (1960) was influential in
the growing public awareness of the interrelationship of
design, architecture and urban planning.
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Oak tree in yellow field
1939 Rosebud, Victoria
oil on canvas on composition board
The Warren Clark Bequest, 1997
1997.91
Following the death of Emma Minnie in 1936, Arthur
lived with his much-loved grandfather, Arthur Merric, at
his cottage at Rosebud, on the Mornington Peninsula.
The teenage Arthur was free to paint, roaming the
countryside and sailing on the bay, inspired by the lightfilled landscapes of the Heidelberg Impressionists as
well as the intensity of Vincent van Gogh’s art. He often
painted with family and friends, such as his cousin Pat
Boyd (elder son of Penleigh) who showed him how to
apply paint with a palette knife. In 1939 his grandfather’s
failing health required them to return to Open Country.
_____________________________________________
MERRIC – ROOM 1
Merric Boyd is considered the first notable artist potter in
Australia. Unlike his more gregarious brothers, Merric
took time to find his path, studying at the Melbourne
National Gallery School, before undergoing training at
an agricultural college and a religious seminary. He
began working in clay in around 1907 when, inspired by
the sculptor and family friend Charles Web Gilbert, he
used the medium to model small sculptures. In 1910 he
taught himself how to make wheel-thrown pottery and,
with some assistance from commercial potter Archibald
McNair, the process of glazing and firing. Merric held his
first exhibition in 1912 – the first solo exhibition of studio
pottery displayed in Australia.
In 1913 Merric established his pottery studio at Open
Country, where he produced his distinctive wheel-thrown
and hand-modelled earthenware forms. Often working in
collaboration with his wife, Doris, the works typically
drew inspiration from Australian flora and fauna and are
characterised by sinuous, sculptural forms and an earthy
charm. Merric had early success, but a disastrous fire in
1926 destroyed his kiln, a trauma that affected his
output and long-term health. Nevertheless he continued
to produce his art, including numerous drawings, until
the 1950s.
‘The first impulse of the maker of hand pottery is to
obtain pleasure in making and decorating an article, and
making that pleasure intelligible to others. Besides that,
it is his ultimate aim to produce something beautiful
which will give pleasure to all beholders. The use of our
own flora and fauna is of the first importance.’
Merric Boyd
_____________________________________________
Doris Boyd was widely remembered for her sweetness
of disposition, devotion to her family and her Christian
Science faith in Divine Love. The daughter of Thomas
Gough, a naval officer, and Evelyn, a journalist, socialist
and feminist activist, Doris was a popular art student
when she met Penleigh, and then his elder brother
Merric. She married the latter in 1915 and was a
dedicated wife to Merric, despite his complexities. Doris
was also an accomplished artist, delicately painting and
sketching when she was not mothering, or assisting
Merric with the decorating, firing and selling of his
ceramics.
Doris used her creative skills in the Open Country studio
and often collaborated with Merric, particularly in
decorating the wares. Her contribution is sometimes
acknowledged with an inscription on the base of the
objects, but otherwise can be identified by her painterly
style. She also played an important role in managing
their finances and in promoting and selling the work,
helping Merric transport it to Melbourne to sell at the
Primrose Pottery Shop and other outlets.
_____________________________________________
Philippa James was one of Merric’s pupils from about
1919 to 1924. Merric’s strong stylistic influence can be
seen in the many works James created featuring
Australian plant and animal motifs, as well as their rustic
charm – a quality typically associated with Merric’s work.
James joined the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria in
1925 and exhibited regularly until the 1940s, when she
stopped making pottery.
_____________________________________________
Throughout his life Merric sketched, but in his later
years, as his health failed him, he turned increasingly to
small-scale, coloured pencil drawings. He would sit in
the Brown Room at Open Country constantly drawing,
and carried pencils with him, tucked in his socks, as he
walked around the neighbourhood. He frequently gave
his drawings away, although their loose style and often
fantastic forms were not appreciated by everyone.
Merric Boyd
Australia 1888–1959, England 1917–19
Jug
1934 Yarraville, Melbourne
glazed porcelaineous stoneware
Kenneth Hood Bequest Fund, 20122012.21
For a few months in 1934 Doris and Merric worked from
a studio at the Australian Porcelain Insulator Company
in Yarraville, Melbourne, where they were employed to
produce a range of high-fired wares that were known as
Cruffel Art Porcelain. Thrown and modelled by Merric
and decorated by Doris, these works were made using
the porcelaineous clay that was left over from insulator
production and are characterised by their refined
production values.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Jug
1931 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Gift of Don McRae, 1991
D33-1991
This is one of the earliest known ceramic works by
Arthur Boyd. Made when he was just eleven years of
age, it shows the very strong influence of his father. It is
an accomplished effort and foreshadows his competent
approach to the medium which was a feature of his
production at the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery.
Hatton Beck
Australia 1901–94, England 1966–70
Jug
1950s Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Presented through the NGV Foundation from
the Bequest of Barbara Parker, 20052005.574
Following the fire that destroyed the Open Country
studio in 1926, Hatton Beck assisted Merric in firing his
work in a kiln at his studio in nearby Oakleigh. By the
early 1930s Beck was regularly working with Merric at
Open Country and in 1939 he married Lucy, Merric’s
and Doris’s eldest daughter. Around this time Hatton
and Lucy set up Altamira Pottery in an old butcher’s
shop on Neerim Road, Murrumbeena, where they
produced a range of utilitarian ceramics. This was taken
over by Arthur, John Perceval and Peter Herbst in 1944
and renamed the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery.
WAR – ROOM 2
When the Second World War was declared in 1939, the
Boyd family’s pacifist beliefs were challenged. Arthur,
Guy and David managed to avoid active combat, instead
serving with the military in Victoria. Working in the
Cartographic Unit in Melbourne, in 1941 Arthur and Guy
met the impish young artist John Perceval. When
Perceval was discharged the following year, he settled
at Open Country and in 1944 married the youngest
Boyd, Mary. In 1942 Arthur met his future wife Yvonne
Lennie, an artist who was friends with Albert Tucker, Joy
Hester, Sidney Nolan, John and Sunday Reed, and
other members of the recently formed Contemporary Art
Society.
At this time, Melbourne’s small art community was
intensely stimulated by the confronting art and personal
experiences of émigré artists such as Yosl Bergner and
Danila Vassilieff; the modern European art revealed to
Melburnians at the Herald Exhibition in 1939; the
vehement political arguments raging in Australia; the
reports of fighting overseas and the sudden, sordid
transformation of wartime Melbourne. In response,
young artists such as Arthur, Perceval, Tucker, Hester,
Bergner and others explored elements of
Expressionism, Surrealism and Social Realism as they
redefined the role of art in this troubled time.
Yosl Bergner
born Austria 1920, Australia 1937–48, Israel from 1950
Father and child
1940 Melbourne
oil on composition board
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by
Mr Yosl Bergner, Founder Benefactor, 1985
A6-1985
A Viennese-born Jew, Yosl Bergner spent his childhood
in Warsaw. As a teenager, he fled Nazi Europe, arriving
in Melbourne in 1937 where he soon became a vocal
and persuasive presence. Bergner’s dark images of
European cities and Melbourne’s inner suburbs, and his
identification with the poor and dispossessed, were
highly influential upon young Melbourne painters of his
generation. Bergner met Arthur Boyd in 1938, and
actively encouraged his development away from tranquil
landscapes towards art that was more expressive and
emotional. Desperately poor, Bergner was one of many
émigrés and refugees who were welcomed (and fed) at
Open Country during these years.
Yosl Bergner
born Austria 1920, Australia 1937–48, Israel from 1950
The village on fire
1940 Melbourne
oil on composition board
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by
Mr Yosl Bergner, Founder Benefactor, 1985
A5-1985
En route to Australia, Bergner had travelled via Paris
where he saw art by French Realists Jean-François
Millet and Honoré Daumier, and early paintings by Pablo
Picasso. This chilling painting suggests immediate
events – the Warsaw ghetto was established in 1940 –
as well as the centuries of persecution and pogroms
suffered by Jews. Bergner saw an affinity between the
discrimination against Jews and that suffered by
Indigenous Australians; his empathetic paintings later
influenced Arthur Boyd’s important Brides series, (1957–
60). In 1941 Bergner, Arthur and the communist social
realist Noel Counihan exhibited together at the Rowden
White Library, University of Melbourne.
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
The weathercock
1944 Melbourne
oil on muslin board
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with
the assistance of The Shell Company of Australia
Limited, Founder Benefactor, 1988 A7-1988
Apart from a few brief months at the Melbourne National
Gallery School, Arthur had little formal art training, while
Perceval had none until after the Second World War.
The two studied at the State Library of Victoria and in
Melbourne’s few enlightened bookstores, explored the
National Gallery of Victoria’s collection and chatted in
friends’ studios and local pubs. During the war, Arthur
was stationed in South Melbourne, then a poor and
depressed area of the city. In 1943–44 he produced a
disturbing series of drawings and paintings based upon
real and imagined events, set against terrace-lined
houses and factories.
_____________________________________________
‘I used to see some weird characters walking up and
down the beach at South Melbourne. The woman
wheeling her paralysed dog by its hind legs, the man
running up with a flower trying to ingratiate himself … I
sketched them on the spot … The cripples, the factory
girls and the factory chimneys. They were meant to
serve as reminders.’
Arthur Boyd
_____________________________________________
With limited time for painting, Arthur produced numerous
drawings, made with a bamboo reed pen. In their
expressionistic violence and often irrational imagery,
these marked a radical new direction for his art. Moths,
coffins, flowers, cripples, recumbent or floating figures,
entwined lovers and strange hybrid animals appear in
various permutations in industrial or inner-city
landscapes, and became the basis of the private
iconography that he used throughout his life. In addition
to scenes from wartime Melbourne, some of Arthur’s
fundamental images were drawn from disturbing
personal recollections, such as when his father Merric
collapsed during an epileptic seizure, or the sight of his
grandfather’s corpse.
_____________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Soul singer at Luna Park
1942–43 Melbourne
oil on composition board
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by
Mr John Perceval, Founder Benefactor, 1986
A10-1986
The influx of tens of thousands of American servicemen
to Melbourne during the Second World War led to a
number of popular jazz and blues clubs being
established, including at Luna Park and around Flinders
Street Station. With wartime shortages, Perceval made
use of materials at hand. This work was originally
painted on the reverse side of Survival; the board was
separated in 1967, and this work donated to the NGV by
the artist in 1986.
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Survival
1942 Melbourne
oil on composition board
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with
the assistance of Amcor Limited, Fellow, 1982
A8-1982
In 1941 John Perceval met Guy and Arthur Boyd and
joined the Contemporary Art Society (CAS), thus gaining
support and stimulation from both the Outer Circle
community and Melbourne’s radical art group. Perceval
first exhibited the following year, aged only nineteen, in
the controversial Anti-Fascist Exhibition that was
organised by the CAS. Survival was one of two works
exhibited, and demonstrates the young artist’s
experimentation with powerful new ideas and artistic
influences. The nurturing relationship of mother and
child, so prevalent in European art, is here threatened
by desperate poverty, the contorted child seemingly
struggling to escape from the embrace of the
exaggerated hands.
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Exodus from a bombed city
1942 Melbourne
oil on composition board
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with
the assistance of Dinah and Henry Krongold, Founder
Benefactors, 1987
A2-1987
In this powerful painting the curved horizon and distorted
perspective gives an impression of universal suffering;
the world divided between the fleeing innocents, and the
soldiers, now rotting, their bayonets like frozen lightning.
Between them a plague of rats, with blood-red feet,
streams towards the ruined city. Perceval is clearly
calling upon the war imagery of artists such as Käthe
Kollwitz and the German Expressionists, as well as the
strong black outlines used by French artist Georges
Rouault, most evident in the nuns’ features. The skeletal
figure in the foreground is a self-portrait.
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Boy with broken pot
1943 Melbourne
oil on muslin on composition board
Gift of the artist, 1989
AC7-1989
Children appear in many of Perceval’s works of the
1940s, often in anxious, surreal settings. The fair-haired
boy refers to his own fraught childhood, although the
scene here may have more immediate references – the
damaged jug has an amorphous form similar to Merric
Boyd’s work, and the curly haired dog is probably based
upon Peter, the Boyd family pet who appeared regularly
in Arthur’s work. These early experimental paintings
were not commercially successful and remained in the
artist’s personal collection: Perceval gave this painting to
the NGV in 1989.
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Boy with a kite, Fitzroy
1943 Melbourne
oil on composition board
The Joseph Brown Collection.
Presented through the NGV Foundation by
Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor,
2004
2004.204
1940s Melbourne was a period of intense
experimentation and debate about the directions of
contemporary art. Perceval embraced the styles of
artists banned or exiled by the Nazis, such as Max
Beckmann and Emil Nolde, as well as the social-realist
style sanctioned by the Communist Party. He may also
have been influenced by the Russian émigré Danila
Vassilieff, whose vibrantly coloured and expressive
paintings and interest in children’s and folk art were a
revelation to young Melbourne artists. A clear
development from Perceval’s earlier, monumental
paintings, this gestural work, with its whorls of paint,
seems both joyous and slightly sinister.
Albert Tucker
Australia 1914–99, Europe and United States 1947–60
Army barracks
1942 Melbourne
enamel paint on plywood
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with
the assistance of the Westpac Banking Corporation,
Founder Benefactor, 1992 A5-1992
A self-taught artist, Albert Tucker was articulate and a
fluent writer who entered forcefully into the debates
about the role of art being argued at the Contemporary
Art Society and in the pages of the Angry Penguins
journal. In 1942 Tucker was drafted into the army, but
the harsh and dehumanishing conditions of the training
camp caused both physical and psychological distress,
which resulted in him being invalided to Heidelberg
Military Hospital. Here he worked as a medical illustrator
among shell-shocked and maimed and disfigured
soldiers, which further traumatised him. After his
discharge, Tucker expressed his horror of war in
compelling and claustrophobic paintings.
Albert Tucker
Australia 1914–99, Europe and United States 1947–60
Self-portrait
1945 Melbourne
charcoal, brush and ink and wash
Purchased, 1980
P3-1980
Albert Tucker and his wife, the artist Joy Hester, became
good friends with the Boyds and the Percevals, who
visited each other at Open Country and at the Reeds’
house, Heide. Tucker was a keen photographer and
took many photographs of wartime Melbourne and his
friends. His photographs of Open Country are some of
the best surviving visual records of the property.
_____________________________________________
Albert Tucker
Australia 1914–99, Europe and United States 1947–60
(Images of modern evil)
1945 Melbourne
coloured pastel on brown paper
Purchased, 1978
A34-1978
To represent his disillusionment with contemporary
society and symbolise his disgust at the abandoned and
self-destructive behaviour he witnessed on Melbourne’s
nocturnal streets, Tucker created a grotesque female
form, with a bright, crescent-shaped mouth, who
appeared in his series of paintings and drawings titled
Images of modern evil. In this drawing she sprawls,
drunk or abandoned, before a distinctive Melbourne
tram. In 1946, when Tucker, Arthur Boyd and Sidney
Nolan exhibited together at the Rowden White Library at
the University of Melbourne, Tucker devised the publicity
catch-cry: ‘Tramway Tucker, Bible Boyd and Ned Nolan’.
DIDACTIC
In 1944 Arthur Boyd, John Perceval and émigré artist
and philosopher Peter Herbst purchased Hatton Beck’s
pottery, Altamira, in a building near Murrumbeena
station in Neerim Road. It was renamed the Arthur
Merric Boyd (AMB) Pottery and became one of
Australia’s most innovative and colourful postwar
potteries.
The AMB Pottery was initially set up to make functional
domestic ware to meet government requirements, a
move that enabled Arthur to leave the army. As austerity
measures were relaxed, Arthur and Perceval were able
to exercise their artistic inclinations, creating vibrantly
glazed and decorated one-off pieces, including bowls,
plates, vases, coffee and tea sets, and tiles that were
often applied to small tabletops.
When Herbst left AMB in 1950 to continue an academic
career, his share in the partnership was taken up by
artist, gardener and keen naturalist Neil Douglas, who
was already employed at the pottery. Numerous people
were involved in the collaborative production process
over the years, including Yvonne Boyd, Mary Perceval,
Charles Blackman, Tim and Betty Burstall, Carl Cooper,
Valerie Herbst, John Howley, Margo Knox, Jean
Langley, Dorothy Meyer, Tom Sanders, Martin Smith,
Albert Tucker, John Yule and many others.
_____________________________________________
‘When I took it out it was still hot. It was a most
marvellous feeling ... I’ll never forget it ... a painting
doesn’t have anywhere near the impact of pulling
something out that has been almost purged by being
through fire ... It is a pure object and it is changed. It’s
formed in the fire and so the surprise is marvellous.’
Arthur Boyd
_____________________________________________
Merric Boyd
Australia 1888–1959, England 1917–19
Arthur Boyd
1926 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Gift of John Alexander Lyne through the
Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2012
2012.228
Merric Boyd began his artistic career as a sculptor – a
plaster bust he modelled of Doris in 1911 was displayed
in Open Country’s Brown Room – and throughout his life
he modelled the occasional figure. These two figurines
are portraits of Arthur, his eldest son. This earlier, more
realistic work was made when Arthur was six; the latter
is a more idiosyncratic representation of him as a young
boy, made when Arthur was twenty-nine years old.
_____________________________________________
Yvonne Lennie was a talented artist who won first prize
for drawing at the Melbourne National Gallery School in
1939, and during the early 1940s developed her painting
style in the expressionistic social realist manner of the
time. Like many of the Boyd women, following her
marriage to Arthur in 1945, Yvonne’s art was soon
overshadowed by her domestic duties and her
husband’s career. Although most of the decorators who
assisted at the AMB Pottery were not acknowledged,
these vessels are signed ‘YB’.
Neil Douglas introduced a quirky depiction of the
environment to the earthenware produced at AMB.
Using a direct, tempera-style technique – applying the
underglaze colour onto the leather-hard clay surface
before the application of a clear overglaze and
subsequent firing – he created idiosyncratic pieces that
combined a feathery but skilful painting style with simple
thrown forms.
Douglas was a passionate gardener who helped create
Sunday Reed’s garden at Heide in Templestowe, and
his love of Australian flora and fauna is evident in his art.
A charismatic and eccentric individual, he later became
a conservationist crusader.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery studio
Murrumbeena, Melbourne 1944–58
Arthur Boyd potter and decorator
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Decanter set
1948 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Gift of John Perceval, 1987D32.a-f-1987
The themes that Arthur and John Perceval were
exploring in their paintings and drawings often crossed
over to the designs they painted onto their ceramics.
Betty Burstall and her husband Tim were close friends of
the Boyds, and the families visited each other often.
Betty’s serene features and halo of brown curls were the
source for Arthur’s vision of angels that he painted at
this time. Betty Burstall later founded La Mama Theatre
in Carlton.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Self-portrait
1938 Melbourne
oil on plywood
Gift of Stuart Purves, 2007
2007.22
Like Arthur and his siblings, John Perceval
demonstrated his artistic skill from an early age – this
self-portrait was painted when he was only fifteen.
Raised on a wheat farm in Western Australia, and
sharing his time between there and Melbourne, with
each of his divorced parents, Perceval’s childhood was
further disturbed when he contracted polio, a disease
that paralysed many. He was left with a permanent limp.
During his long convalescence Perceval developed his
precocious talents, which were soon recognised – an
article about his painting appeared in the Sun-News
Pictorial in June 1938.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
(The backyard, Open Country)
1948 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil on buff paper
Gift of the Reverend Ian Brown, 2014
Despite the multitude of artists who lived at and visited
Open Country, only a few drawings and photographs
exist of its overgrown garden, where children climbed
trees, adults danced on warm evenings, and snails and
weeds were safe. The shed and building in the
background of this drawing hint at the assorted buildings
that accumulated over the years, while the fence on the
left may be the boundary, which was reduced as the
properties once owned by Merric and Doris’s mothers
were sold. Perceval’s skilful use of negative space
allows this tranquil outdoor scene to float upon the sheet
of paper.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Merric Boyd in the Brown Room
late 1940s – early 1950s Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil on buff paper
Gift of the Reverend Ian Brown, 2014
Merric and Doris frequently served as informal models for
both Perceval and Arthur during the 1940s. As Merric’s
health deteriorated, his ability to continue with his pottery
diminished, yet Perceval depicts him here in the Brown
Room surrounded by his tools and vessels, with their
distinctive amorphous forms and swirling shapes.
________________________________________________
In the years following the Second World War, the crowded
domestic and social life at Open Country was vital subject
matter for Arthur and Perceval. Each produced hundreds of
sketches and studies of friends, family and surroundings. In
his drawing style, Perceval developed a distinctive cursive
freedom and fluidity of line, with little use of tonality, which
conveys a sense of vigour and instantaneity. His fascination
with children is also apparent, observing and enjoying their
concentration and absorption in the world around them.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Baby (Matthew Perceval)
mid – late 1940s Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil
Purchased, 1977
P24-1977
Having had no previous art training, following the the
Second World War Perceval was able to take classes at the
National Gallery School, focusing on portraiture. He had no
shortage of children to model for him – the newborn baby
swaddled in this undated drawing is probably his son
Matthew (born 1945), but could also be his niece Polly
(1946), his first daughter Tessa (1947), or his nephew Jamie
(1948), all of whom lived at Open Country.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
(Figures on wheels)
mid – late 1940s Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil on buff paper
Purchased, 1977
P27-1977
This drawing depicts people borne upon wheels at various
stages of life, from pram to tricycle to hand-propelled
wheelchair, the latter a common sight with many paralysed
by polio or crippled by war. Perceval was fortunate to regain
his mobility after his polio infection, but his friend Carl
Cooper had been confined to a wheelchair. Perceval’s art
demonstrates his often ribald sense of humour, influenced
by artists such as William Hogarth, as well as contemporary
characters including Charlie Chaplin. This image may be a
gentle memento mori: ‘As you are now, so once was I, As I
am now, so you must be’.
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, lived in England 1959–71, Australia
and England from 1971
The Denial of St Peter
1946–47 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
oil on canvas on composition board
Presented by Terrinalum Properties Pty Ltd, 1990
AC3-1990
In the years immediately following the Second World
War, the art of Arthur and Perceval developed a close, if
short-lived affinity. Biblical narratives appeared in their
paintings, drawings and ceramics, inspired by Arthur’s
childhood recollections of his grandmother Emma
Minnie’s illustrated Bible, and Merric’s nightly readings
from the Bible. Many of Arthur’s paintings at this time
have an Old Testament darkness, with apocalyptic
imagery often set in forbidding bushscapes under
leaden skies. This painting, however, is a more direct
rendition of the Apostle Peter denying his friendship with
Jesus, as the rooster prepares to crow.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, lived in England 1959–71, Australia
and England from 1971
Christ carrying the Cross
1946–47 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
oil on canvas
The Joseph Brown Collection.
Presented through the NGV Foundation by
Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor,
2004
2004.143
Unlike some of their contemporaries who considered
historical art irrelevant, both Arthur and Perceval keenly
studied earlier artists, in particular, during the mid
1940s, Rembrandt van Rijn and the Flemish
Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel. Brueghel’s
relocation of biblical or mythical events into bucolic
contemporary settings was appreciated by both artists,
who placed their subjects into Melbourne streetscapes
or distinctively Australian bush landscapes. Here Christ
bearing his burden struggles to make his way through
what looks like a country show, crowded with people,
animals and tents, with the Australian institutions of
church and football oval visible on the horizon.
_____________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Romulus suckling the wolf with Remus
1946 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil
Purchased, 1977
P25-1977
The twins Romulus and Remus are the mythical founders of
Rome, abandoned by their treacherous uncle in the
wilderness, where they were raised by a wolf. Perceval
returned to this theme subsequently, including a ceramic
sculpture of the boys being fed by their protective wolf
mother, a late work in his Angels series, (1957–62).
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Study for The Nativity
1947 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil on buff paper
Purchased, 1977
P28-1977
The figures depicted worshipping the newborn baby are
based upon those familiar to Perceval – the central female
leaning forward bears similarities to drawings Perceval
made of Doris in a stooped pose; the elderly naked figure on
the right may be Merric; and the long-haired female to the
left is possibly Mary Perceval. The blond-haired boy, who
appears repeatedly in Perceval’s oeuvre, harks back to
himself as a fair child, or to one of the many grandchildren of
Doris and Merric who were starting to populate Open
Country.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
The angel Gabriel descended (Study for The Crossing of
the Red Sea)
1947 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
pencil on buff paper
Purchased, 1977
P26-1977
In this expressive sketch, and the resulting oil painting,
Moses is neither parting the Red Sea nor drowning the
pursuing Egyptians, but rather is seated, a kindly patriarch,
greeting the Chosen – a tumultuous, Boschian mix of
humans and animals – like Christ at the Last Judgement.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Study for The Crossing of the Red Sea
c. 1947 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
brush and ink and wash
Private collection, Melbourne
This work depicts the last of the Chosen, hastened by the
angel Gabriel, rushing to reach land as the parted waves
crash forth, drowning their enemies in swirls of foaming
crests. Perceval’s great ability is evident in the mass of
lines, a controlled diagonal emphasis to the lower left
creating an exhilarating sense of urgency and confusion.
DIDACTIC - SWIMMING POOL
In the late 1940s Arthur started using the ceramic
medium in more complex ways. Between 1949 and
1953 he produced a series of approximately 100
ceramic paintings on handmade tiles, which are
remarkable for their brilliant, luminous colour – the
results of intensive experimentation with firing and
glazing techniques. The paintings combine imagery from
the Bible, classical mythology and Arthur’s own personal
iconography. A second series was produced in London
in 1962–64.
In 1953–54, Arthur created a number of figurative
compositions constructed from slabs of terracotta clay
and painted with underglaze colours. These works
explored form and space and were clearly influenced by
Cubism. These powerful sculptures were exhibited to
great interest at Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, in 1954,
from where the National Gallery of Victoria purchased
David and Saul, c. 1952, the first of the sculptures the
artist had made.
For the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Arthur was
commissioned to make a monumental sculpture, to be
installed at the new Olympic Swimming Stadium, beside
the Yarra River, where it still stands. Eventually
constructed from more than 250 glazed terracotta bricks
weighing a total of twelve tons, and standing at ten
metres tall, the sinuous, abstracted form was seen as a
triumph of Australian sculpture.
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
David and Saul
c. 1952 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Purchased, 1954
1482-D4
This is the first sculpture that Arthur Boyd made. When it
was exhibited in 1954, John Reed wrote to Albert
Tucker: ‘All your faith in Arthur … is now beautifully
realised in work which could be confidently placed
anywhere in the world … When one enters the show
one has that immediate feeling of monumentality, both in
concept and execution, which one associates inevitably
with the word “master” … They are most richly painted
and it is really hard to understand how anyone with a
grain of sensitivity can fail to be bowled over by the force
of their immediate impact’.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
The whale putting Jonah into its mouth, tile
c. 1953 Murrumbeena, Melbourne
earthenware
Purchased, 1953
1359-D4
This is from the series of glazed tiles that Arthur made
between 1949 and 1953. Jonah, a prophet recorded in
the Old Testament, disobeyed God and a terrible storm
was brought upon his ship. He was cast into the sea,
thus calming the storm, and then swallowed by a whale;
subsequently he was saved by God. This is one of
Boyd’s more Cubist tiles which, in its frontal approach,
conveys both the momentum of the approaching
creature and the terror of Jonah. The luminous glazes
that Arthur created were inspired, in part, by European
ceramics he had seen in the NGV Collection.
_____________________________________________
THE OTHER BOYDS
All of the Boyds were involved in pottery making, which
they had learnt by watching and assisting their parents’
artistic activity. In 1946 Guy Boyd set up a commercial
pottery studio in Sydney while he was studying sculpture
at East Sydney Technical College. Initially named Guy
Boyd Pottery, it was renamed Martin Boyd Pottery (after
his uncle) in 1948. Guy was assisted in the studio by his
brother David, and it operated as a successful concern
until 1963. Over time, however, Guy withdrew from the
studio, returning to Melbourne with his wife Phyllis in
1951 to continue his pottery and, later, sculpture.
While in Sydney, David met the young Hermia Lloyd
Jones, who worked part-time as a decorator at the
Martin Boyd Pottery. They married in 1948 and soon
after established their own pottery, and for two years
produced a stylish range marketed as ‘Hermia Ware’. In
1950 they departed Australia and, until 1970, moved
between England and France where they set up a
number of pottery studios. Visits back to Australia often
saw them working at Open Country or the Arthur Merric
Boyd Pottery. In 1967 they ceased making pottery, with
David concentrating on his painting and Hermia on
making sculpture.
Guy Boyd Pottery studio
Oakleigh, Melbourne 1952–64
Ramekins
c. 1957 Oakleigh, Melbourne
glazed earthenware
Private collection, Melbourne
Ramekins were one of the main commercial items
produced at the Boyd pottery studios in the 1940s and
1950s. Both the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery and the
Martin Boyd Pottery sold large numbers of these small
tureen sets that were particularly popular with postwar
homemakers. In 1951 Guy Boyd left the Martin Boyd
Pottery, which he had established with his brother
David, and returned to Melbourne where set up a studio
with his wife Phyllis. This group of ramekins is from the
late 1950s and was produced at Guy’s Oakleigh studio.
_____________________________________________
LATER WORKS
As the AMB Pottery developed and the wartime demand
for utilitarian ware receded, the items produced became
increasingly imaginative, with spontaneous and often
humorous designs painted onto the earthenware forms
in brightly coloured glazes. From 1948 Arthur withdrew
from the business to concentrate on his glazed tiles,
sculptures and, increasingly, on landscape painting.
Thereafter Perceval, along with Neil Douglas and their
many assistants, dedicated himself to the pottery until
he too returned to painting in the mid 1950s. Each artist
found Australian scenery that captivated him, in
particular the Wimmera, Gaffney’s Creek and
Williamstown.
Change was inevitable at Open Country. One by one the
children moved away as their families grew and their
careers developed, and the AMB Pottery formally
ceased in 1958. Upon the death of Merric in 1959, and
of Doris in 1960, Lucy and Hatton Beck returned to the
house and briefly used the pottery facilities again. In
1964, the decision was reluctantly made to sell the now
run-down property, and a block of flats was built in its
place. The land of the Outer Circle railway line is now
named Boyd Park, in memory of this extraordinary
family and the role Open Country played in the artistic
and creative life of mid-century Melbourne.
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
The wheatfield
1948 Harkaway, Victoria
oil on composition board
The Joseph Brown Collection.
Presented through the NGV Foundation by
Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor,
2004
2004.144
In the later 1940s Arthur’s art took on a tranquillity not
seen since before the Second World War. While working
on the murals commissioned by his uncle Martin, and
living with Yvonne and their children at The Grange,
Arthur was able to relax amid the undulating hills of the
Berwick countryside. He was particularly taken at this
time with the painterly style and scenery of landscapist
Louis Buvelot, with whom Emma Minnie had studied. He
was also exploring the Old Master paint medium of
tempera, and thinned oil paint to create a translucency
akin to that of ceramic glazes, as demonstrated in this
quintessentially Australian vista.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Irrigation lake, Wimmera
1950 Wimmera, Victoria
resin and tempera on composition board
Purchased, 1950
2331-4
During the 1950s Arthur was increasingly attracted to
Australia’s harsher landscapes. In 1950 Yvonne and her
family were invited to visit friends in Horsham, western
Victoria, and they returned in subsequent years. Arthur
was familiar with the bold, abstract paintings that his
friend Sidney Nolan had created of this region, yet his
own interpretation was markedly different. These
luminous paintings show the glare and harsh nature of
the dry farmland, here backed by the Grampians, with
cockatoos screeching from the dead, dammed trees.
This was the first painting by Arthur purchased by the
NGV, in the year it was made.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Burning off
1958 Gippsland, Victoria
oil on composition board
Purchased with funds donated by Mr Roderick Carnegie,
1971
A11-1971
After a period devoted to the ceramic sculptures and
Olympic Games commission, Arthur returned to
landscape painting during the summer of 1956–57.
These paintings of the Victorian bush and Peninsula are
marked by an unprecedented variety in both their
subjects and techniques. Arthur painted this scene, of
bush destroyed for human consumption, in Gippsland,
where he was painting a mural for St John’s Anglican
Church, Yallourn. Other painting trips with friends, such
as John Perceval, Charles Blackman and Fred Williams,
took them to many country and seaside areas.
_____________________________________________
Arthur Boyd
Australia 1920–99, England 1959–71, Australia and
England from 1971
Shelly beach
1958 Portsea, Victoria
oil on canvas on composition board
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria from
the
Bequest of Mrs G. H. Hillas, Founder Benefactor, 1999
1999.109
In 1955 Yvonne and Arthur moved from the tiny Robin
Boyd–designed studio at Open Country to their own
house, a weatherboard cottage in bayside Beaumaris.
The following year Arthur signed with Australian
Galleries, the newly formed gallery of Tam and Anne
Purves, which provided a much-needed regular income.
Visits to the Purves’ beach house in Sorrento awoke
memories of Arthur’s teenage years in Rosebud, seen
here in both textural technique and in the pastel tones
that evoke the work of the Australian Impressionists.
After the dissolution of the AMB Pottery in 1958, Arthur,
Yvonne and their three children sailed for England.
_____________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
(Potato field)
1948 Victoria
oil on canvas on composition board
The Joseph Brown Collection.
Presented through the NGV Foundation by
Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
2004.205
In 1939 at the Herald exhibition of French and British
Contemporary Art, Perceval saw for the first time,
among many other eye-opening works of art,
landscapes and portraits by Vincent van Gogh. His great
admiration for van Gogh’s art changed the way he
applied his paint in the postwar years. This painting,
which in title and subject pays tribute to van Gogh,
shows this new direction where paint texture and
brushstrokes articulate the forms. Potato field may have
been exhibited in Perceval’s first solo exhibition, in 1948.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Gannets diving
1956 Williamstown, Melbourne
enamel paint and gouache on composition board
Presented by the National Gallery Society of Victoria
as the winner of The John McCaughey Memorial Prize,
1957
3763-4
In 1956 Perceval discovered the Melbourne port of
Williamstown, and began painting there en plein air. He
described it as ‘like finding Venice’, but Williamstown
was a grubby equivalent, with its working naval
dockyard, crowds of tankers, yachts and sailing craft,
and water bobbing with buoys, markers and black
swans. Perceval painted there on many weekends, often
joined by Arthur and Charles Blackman. His first series
of Williamstown paintings formed the opening exhibition
of Australian Galleries in 1956, and was well received,
bringing a degree of prosperity to the Perceval family.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Study for Tug boat in a boat
1956, dated 1957 Williamstown, Melbourne
fibre-tipped pen
Private collection, Melbourne
Perceval enjoyed finding quirky or humorous scenes
around him, in this case a boat within a boat. In the
drawings he produced at this time, his technique shows
a progression from the linear studies of the 1940s to one
of greater exuberance where flourishing fibre-tipped
lines are combined with dashes, dots, swirls and
squiggles. When translated into paint, the thickly applied
strokes, often in exaggerated primary colours, enhance
the movement and bustle of these seaside scenes.
________________________________________________
John Perceval
Australia 1923–2000, England 1963–65
Ocean beach, Sorrento
1957 Sorrento, Victoria
enamel paint and tempera on canvas on composition board
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by
Mrs G. H. Hillas, Governor, 1997
1997.66
In January 1957 Perceval visited Portsea and Sorrento
as the guest of Tam and Anne Purves. Inspired by the
irregular coastline, he painted a small group of works,
some of which were shown later that year at the Purves’
Australian Galleries in a joint exhibition with Arthur.
Painted in two hours, Ocean beach, Sorrento, also
known as Diamond Beach, depicts a rocky portion of
shore under the dry heat of a summer’s day. The paint is
applied frenetically, dribbled and scratched onto the
surface to convey the sparkling turbulence of the
foaming waves and ruggedness of the landscape.
________________________________________________
John Brack
Australia 1920–99
John Perceval and his angels
1962 Surrey Hills, Melbourne
oil on canvas
Purchased with funds donated by Mr Roderick Carnegie,
1970
1786-5
In 1957, at his new home and studio in the Melbourne
suburb of Canterbury, Perceval began a remarkable
series of ceramic figures. Based upon observations of
his children, their cousins and friends, he threw and
modelled gnomic and elfin figures, glazed and fired in a
rich sang-de-beouf red. Perceval finished making his
sculptures in 1961, the year before his friend John Brack
painted this portrait of him with his clay creations.
________________________________________________
The National Gallery of Victoria’s collection of John
Perceval’s ceramic sculptures will be installed in the
adjoining room in December 2014, following their return
from the Shepparton Art Gallery, where they are
currently on display in Delinquent Angel: John
Perceval’s Ceramic Angels (29 August – 24 November
2014).
THE BROWN ROOM
The Brown Room, as the all-purpose living and dining
room at Open Country was known, was the heart of the
house. Crowded with art materials, canvases and pots, it
was sparsely furnished with a large dining table and
wooden furniture designed by Merric’s brother Penleigh,
with family paintings and sculptures by Merric around
the walls. Numerous visitors recall the convivial
atmosphere of this space, where people gathered to
sing, dance, play or listen to music, perform and read
aloud; where readings from the Bible were
supplemented with poetry and philosophy texts. Amid
this, Doris would perch, intrigued by discussions
underway, while Merric sat in his rickety armchair, its
broken leg propped upon bricks, accompanied by Peter
the dog. It was a haven of constant encouragement and
loving support, underpinned by humanist cultural values.
The photographs displayed here were taken between
the 1910s and the 1960s by a number of photographers,
in particular Albert Tucker during the 1940s. These
images have been kindly provided by the Bundanon
Trust, the Albert Tucker Photographic Collection (Heide
Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria,
Melbourne), and other sources.
Any recollections or photographs of Open Country or the
Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery are welcomed and may be
sent to outercircle@ngv.vic.gov.au. These may be used
by the NGV for future social/online promotion or
research.
_____________________________________________
‘There were parties and gatherings and so on; it was all
very nice and friendly. Max Nicholson, the Langleys, the
Coutts, Sid Nolan, Charlie and Barbara Blackman, and
Tim and Betty Burstall would come over. I think Yosl
Bergner was still in Melbourne at that time. There’d be
fifty people or more in the brown room. Maybe I’d be
playing piano and people would be dancing around,
maybe smaller groups would be discussing something to
do with the arts or literature or politics, anything.’
David Boyd
________________________________________________
Albert Tucker
Australia 1914–99, Europe and United States 1947–60
Entrance to Open Country, Murrumbeena
mid 1940s
Albert Tucker Photographic Collection,
Heide Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria,
Melbourne
Joint gift of Barbara Tucker 2008
This is the only known image of the entrance to 8
Wahroongaa Crescent, Murrumbeena, known as Open
Country. The figure in the tree (above the gallery
doorway) could be one of several young men, such as
John Perceval or David Boyd, who grew up climbing the
trees in this overgrown garden.
________________________________________________
Marvin Hurnall, 1938–2014
Marvin Hurnall was a collector of Australian decorative
arts, and an acknowledged expert in the field. His
particular interest was in ceramics, and he bought his
first piece when he was in his early twenties. Over more
than fifty years of collecting, Marvin amassed arguably
the finest private collection of studio ceramics in
Australia before his death in August 2014. He was
closely associated with the development of this
exhibition and maintained enthusiastic support for the
NGV’s Australian decorative arts collection and its
presentation through exhibitions. The NGV is very
grateful to the Estate of Marvin Hurnall for making it
possible to honour his wish in lending works to this
exhibition.